Finding Perspective—Young Me
I’m one for seeking perspective. To find perspective, sometimes I must look back. In looking back, I can find both the 30,000 foot view and the four leaf clover view. Each view helps me see today and tomorrow in a better scale. Because I have lived much of my adult life with many memorabilia type items in storage, only recently have I actually had school yearbooks within easy reach… not in someone else’s attic or basement while I was in another country, or a storage unit 30 minutes away. With the beginning of a new school year… one rife with anxiety about how it will unfold and the complexities for even being able to begin this year, may we consider perspective. I picked up some of these old yearbooks a few weeks ago and spent some time with them. These are some thoughts and reflections and ponderings from that special time.
There you are… I remember those eyes. I can hear your voice and your laughter.
I see you there… you who has lived many years since we last gathered for yearbook photos.
Calling to the younger self… just trying to navigate the multiple complexities of childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood.
Comforting all the young ME’s… who want to show up, want to be seen, want not be seen, want to see, learn and grow, or wish they didn’t have to be there.
Reminding us that youth was only one part of what made us… US… acknowledge our school years, but don’t live there.
Telling us to keep perspective… see, seek or don’t seek glory in different ways…on today… toward tomorrow… and don’t give too much credit to yesterday.
Oh those silly awkward young ME signatures for the person we barely knew, the person we wanted to know, the person we thought we knew. The inside jokes that we can no longer remember…(maybe that’s just me), or the twist of a word or phrase that triggers a thought or a long forgotten memory.
Considering the teachers and the others who worked in the schools. Some who are gone… those loved, those respected, those admired, those idolized, those tolerated, those that made one go… “Huh?” Those that set the course for the path we are on today, those that inspired and brought out the best in us, those that brought out the worst in us… those who helped us see…see who we were and who we could be. We remember the quirky habits from some teachers… like a stenographer’s notebook tucked just so between shirt and pants at the base of the spine. Why was it there? Did it help his posture? Did it remind him to stay present? Or was it just an efficient or weird habit that he picked up from his industrial arts teacher? Those who were human and putting one foot in front of the other with what they had available to them, just as we are today.
We look at the pages of younger ME’s - posed and candid, the individual photos, the smiles - the tight lips, relaxed lips, braces, haunted eyes, some sad, some curious and inquisitive… What about the other expressions and body language? What’s the story of the younger ME? As we sit with our yearbooks, we walk the halls again, allow a glance from an old friend to land on our hearts just a little longer, catch the hint of someone we used to know, if only for a moment. We linger on that last wide step and wonder if we were seen. We gather at our locker hoping to hide or be seen among the known.
And from page 17 of my ’79 yearbook, I see that cheeky grin in his eyes glancing over his shoulder… and I ask “ Hey Victor! Where are you? What are you doing these days? How did it feel to be in your skin and subconsciously educate the rest of your class ~ your 97% all-white class?
I see patterns that I wasn’t aware of back then… there was such a mindset of “that’s just the way things are” and I didn’t recognize the patterns then, let alone think to question. I was pretty socially clueless in my younger self. I had such rose colored glasses when I was in those yearbooks… injustices seemed so hidden or was I simply too myopic to see? But when one might get a glimpse of an injustice and ask a question the question seemed to be glossed over, dismissed, or wrongly answered. Maybe only certain ME’s had eyes to see and ears to hear the injustice in those days? But the older I have become, the more I see…
So, may you who are in the school yearbooks of today not become hardened. May you stay vigilant, be courageous, ask better questions and don’t rest till you uncover and discover better answers. May you choose compassion, love, courage, fortitude, strength, and vulnerability to bring enough for all which is justice.
